NASA study just doesn't fly

January 11, 2008

NASA's air safety study finally came in for a shaky landing last week, creating its own turbulence. Now if only someone could locate a black box to help everyone figure out what the heck happened. Incredibly, the results from the $11.3 million federal study, based in part on interviews with about 8,000 pilots per year from 2001 to 2004, were released minus any sort of guide or road map for understanding them or putting them into context. The grudgingly released findings -- more than 16,000 pages in all -- had been withheld due to concerns that they would, according to NASA administrator Michael Griffin, upset travelers and hurt airline profits. Taken to task by Congress for uttering such an alarming and irresponsible statement, Griffin agreed to release the report by year's end -- a deadline that was just made with its New Year's eve release. The raw data NASA posted on its Web site (www.nasa.gov) is likely to inspire fits of frustration and utter confusion. Broken down into long columns, mostly zeroes, stripped of information that could put it into context, the report is nearly incomprehensible. Oh, yes, it's also inaccurate, says Griffin, who claims the report is filled with "inconsistencies" and disputes the finding that jet aircraft engines fail at four times the reported rate. So what to make of this high-priced effort that is, in its current form, basically worthless? It is outrageous that the release of the details of the report -- funded by taxpayers, we might add -- has been handled in such a cynical, deceptive manner. The first order of business is to provide the public with the tools needed to understand the findings. Only after this is accomplished can any sort of conclusions about air safety be drawn and dealt with. The gaudy price tag attached to the NASA report makes it an easy target for outrage. But the truth is that the public deserves clear information in this issue of public safety -- whether the cost is $11 million or $11. From Newsday A brief but tense confrontation between five armed Iranian fast boats and three U.S. Navy warships in the sensitive Strait of Hormuz came close to precipitating a clash that could have had dire effects on the globe's economies. Its significance should not be played down. Don't be fooled into accepting at face value the Iranian government's dismissal of Sunday's incident as "quite normal, nothing out of the ordinary." There was nothing normal about Iranian gunboats charging at U.S. Navy vessels in international waters. Nothing normal about one boat sending out a message in English over the internationally recognized bridge-to-bridge radio channel that reportedly said, "I am coming at you, and you will explode in a few minutes." Nothing normal about the boats dumping white boxes in the wake of one of the Navy ships, which caused the other two to take evasive action for fear they were mines. The lead Iranian boat veered off just as a Navy ship was preparing to fire on it. The incident raises serious questions about the Iranians' intent at a time when tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high. It comes just after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week that he saw "no benefit" in Iran's resuming ties with the United States. Last week, he said Iran would "humiliate any aggressor, regardless of its size and level, so it won't even think of aggression again." That's a curiously bellicose posture in light of the recent national intelligence report that played down Iran's nuclear ambitions and set back prospects for a U.S. attack on Iran. Perhaps he was responding to President Bush's efforts to gain Arab support for his hard-line policy on Iran. The location of the incident, which roiled oil markets, is alarming: The strait is a strategic choke point in the Persian Gulf through which much of the world's oil supply travels. Last month, the commander of U.S. naval forces in the region, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, said Iran was unlikely to try to close the strait, but that it might use aggressive tactics to intimidate U.S. allies in the Gulf and show off its potential for hurting global prosperity. This was a dangerous provocation, and it puts an unnecessary strain on relations that had slim potential for improving to begin with.